Automated adverse drug event alerts

ABSTRACT

Event audio data that is based on verbal utterances associated with a pharmaceutical event associated with a patient may be received. Medical history information associated with the patient may be obtained, based on information included in a medical history repository. At least one text string that matches at least one interpretation of the event audio data may be obtained, based on information included in a pharmaceutical speech repository, information included in a speech accent repository, and a drug matching function, the at least one text string being associated with a pharmaceutical drug. One or more adverse drug event (ADE) alerts may be determined based on matching the at least one text string and medical history attributes associated with the at least one patient with ADE attributes obtained from an ADE repository. An ADE alert report may be generated, based on the determined one or more ADE alerts.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a divisional of, and claims benefit from, commonlyassigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/162,585(Attorney Docket No. 332429.01), with inventors Tao Wang et al., filedJun. 17, 2011, entitled “Automated Adverse Drug Event Alerts,” which ishereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

In pharmaceutical environments, a patient may need to fill one or moreprescriptions provided to them by one or more physicians. For example, apatient recovering from injuries sustained in an automobile accident maybe receiving medical treatment from several medical specialists,including neurologists, internal medicine specialists, ophthalmologists,orthopedists, and dentists. Each specialist may prescribe variousmedications to help the patient in the recovery process, including painmedications, antibiotics, and/or eye drops. Further, medical personnelmay discover that the patient is overdue for immunizations such astetanus shots or H1N1 shots.

Physicians may ask the patient questions, and may manually scan thepatient's medical record to try to determine whether the patient mayhave any allergies or past history of adverse reactions to certaindrugs. The physicians may also try to determine whether there is anyfamily history that might indicate whether any biological relatives ofthe patient have experienced allergies, reactions, or other conditionsthat might provide reasons for the current patient to avoid certaindrugs. Further, the physicians may try to determine whether the patienthas been consuming other drugs or substances that may interactunfavorably with potential newly prescribed drugs or substances.

SUMMARY

According to one general aspect, a pharmaceutical alert speech enginemay include a medical history interface engine configured to access amedical history repository that includes medical history informationassociated with a plurality of patients. The pharmaceutical alert speechengine may also include an audio data receiving engine configured toreceive event audio data that is based on verbal utterances associatedwith a pharmaceutical event associated with at least one of thepatients. The pharmaceutical alert speech engine may also include arecognition engine configured to obtain at least one text string thatmatches at least one interpretation of the received event audio data,based on information obtained from a pharmaceutical speech repository,information obtained from a speech accent repository, and a drugmatching function, the at least one text string associated with apharmaceutical drug. The pharmaceutical alert speech engine may alsoinclude a record retrieval engine configured to obtain medical historyinformation associated with the at least one of the patients. Thepharmaceutical alert speech engine may also include an adverse drugevent (ADE) scanning engine configured to determine, via an alert deviceprocessor, one or more adverse drug event alerts based on matching theat least one text string and medical history attributes associated withthe at least one of the patients with ADE attributes obtained from anADE repository. The pharmaceutical alert speech engine may also includean audio data output interface engine configured to initiate atransmission of an audio alert associated with the one or more ADEalerts to an audio output device.

According to another aspect, a computer program product tangiblyembodied on a computer-readable medium may include executable code that,when executed, is configured to cause at least one data processingapparatus to receive event audio data that is based on verbal utterancesassociated with a pharmaceutical event associated with a patient, andobtain medical history information associated with the patient, based oninformation included in a medical history repository. Further, the dataprocessing apparatus may obtain at least one text string that matches atleast one interpretation of the event audio data, based on informationincluded in a pharmaceutical speech repository, information included ina speech accent repository, and a drug matching function, the at leastone text string associated with a pharmaceutical drug. Further, the dataprocessing apparatus may determine one or more adverse drug event (ADE)alerts based on matching the at least one text string and medicalhistory attributes associated with the at least one patient with ADEattributes obtained from an ADE repository, and may generate an ADEalert report, based on the determined one or more ADE alerts.

According to another aspect, a computer program product tangiblyembodied on a computer-readable medium may include executable code that,when executed, is configured to cause at least one data processingapparatus to receive an indication of a receipt of event audio data froma user that is based on verbal utterances associated with apharmaceutical event associated with a patient, and receive anindication of an ADE alert report based on a first plurality of stringsof text alert information from an ADE alert repository and an ADE alertreport form. Further, the data processing apparatus may receive anindication of an audio alert based on a second plurality of strings oftext alert information from the ADE alert repository, and initiatecommunication of the audio alert to an audio output device associatedwith the user. Further, the data processing apparatus may receivetemplate information associated with an electronic pharmaceutical form,and initiate a graphical output depicting a population of at least onefield of the electronic pharmaceutical form, based on the firstplurality of strings of text alert information from the ADE alertrepository, the ADE alert report form, and the received templateinformation.

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify key features oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. The details ofone or more implementations are set forth in the accompanying drawingsand the description below. Other features will be apparent from thedescription and drawings, and from the claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an example system for automated adversedrug event alerts.

FIGS. 2A-2B are a flowchart illustrating example operations of thesystem of FIG. 1.

FIGS. 3A-3B are a flowchart illustrating example operations of thesystem of FIG. 1.

FIGS. 4A-4B are a flowchart illustrating example operations of thesystem of FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an example system for automated adversedrug event alerts.

FIG. 6 depicts an example graphical view of a populated adverse drugevent alert report.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In a pharmaceutical environment, a patient or caretaker may present oneor more prescription forms to a pharmacist, requesting that thepharmacist provide the prescribed drugs or other items for use orconsumption by the patient. The patient or caretaker may also requestthat the pharmacist query an electronic medical care system to ascertainprescriptions that may have been entered into the system andauthorized/authenticated by one or more physicians so that the patientmay receive their medications at the pharmacy when available.

If the patient has consulted with multiple physicians or medicalspecialists, he/she may have multiple sources of the prescriptions.However, if the patient has received prescriptions from severalphysicians in a short time frame, one or more of the physicians may havebeen unable to ascertain everything that the patient would ultimately bereceiving at the pharmacy (e.g., prescriptions from other physicians maynot yet have appeared in the system). Additionally, adverse drug eventsmay be reported to various local and national systems as they arediscovered, and the physicians and/or pharmacists may not yet be awareof recent warnings with respect to a combination of drugs or acombination of a particular drug and other factors that may pertain tothis patient (e.g., allergies, family history).

As another example, a physician may need to request drugs or otherpharmaceutical items for a patient while engaged in treatment of thepatient, or other activities. For example, a surgeon may be using bothhands for surgery, and may dynamically determine a need for a particulardrug to be sent from a hospital pharmacy, on an immediate basis. Thesurgeon may thus not have an ability to spend time accessing thepatient's medical history to determine whether there may exist a risk ofadverse drug effects from the surgeon's emergency administration of aparticular drug during the surgery.

Example techniques discussed herein may provide pharmaceutical personnelsuch as pharmacists, pharmaceutical technicians, and physicians withexample systems that may accept verbal input to determine whetherparticular drugs or other pharmaceutical items may initiate adverseeffects for the patient. Thus, a pharmacist, pharmaceutical technician,or physician treating or otherwise meeting with a patient may speak drugand prescription information, and an example speech-to-text conversionmay quickly provide audio and/or textual information for alerting thepatient, caretaker, physician, or pharmacist to potential adverse drugevents (ADEs) that may be associated with the patient's use of theprescribed drugs or other items, as discussed further below. Since manypharmaceutical terms may have similar sounds in pronunciation (e.g.,based on phonemes), or may have closely related, but different,meanings, a matching function may be applied to provide one or more textstrings for review or for comparison with patient history informationand information obtained from a database that includes ADE informationassociated with particular drugs.

As further discussed herein, FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system 100for automated adverse drug event alerts. As shown in FIG. 1, a system100 may include a pharmaceutical alert speech engine 102 that includes apharmaceutical speech corpus interface engine 104 that may be configuredto access a pharmaceutical speech repository 106 that includesinformation associated with a corpus of pharmaceutical terms.

For example, the pharmaceutical speech repository 106 may include textstrings associated with standard pharmaceutical terms, as well as textstrings that may be used in a localized environment such as a medicalcare center or chain (e.g., a hospital, a private office of a physician,a privately owned pharmacy). The pharmaceutical speech repository 106may also include information associating various audio data with thepharmaceutical terms, including information regarding terms that mayhave similar pronunciations, as well as terms that may have differentpronunciations, but similar meanings. For example, in a particularcontext, a particular term may be meaningful, but another term that hasa different pronunciation may provide a meaning with better clarity fora given situation, in a pharmaceutical environment.

According to an example embodiment, the pharmaceutical speech repository106 may include text strings associated with pharmaceutical terms thatinclude a name attribute associated with the pharmaceutical drug (e.g.,aspirin, penicillin), a strength attribute associated with thepharmaceutical drug (e.g., 25 mg, 300 ml, 50 mg caplet), or a dosageattribute associated with the pharmaceutical drug (e.g., 3× daily, take2 hours before or after meals).

A speech accent interface engine 108 may be configured to access aspeech accent repository 110 that includes information associated withdatabase objects indicating speech accent attributes associated with oneor more speakers. For example, a speaker may speak with a dialectassociated with a distinct region or province of a country (e.g., with a“Boston accent” or a “Texas drawl”). Further, each individual speakermay have personal speech attributes associated with their individualspeech patterns, which may be discernable via voice recognitiontechniques. For example, a user of the system 100 may provide a trainingsample of his/her voice speaking various predetermined terms so thataudio attributes of that user's speech may be stored in the speechaccent repository 110 for use in matching audio data with terms in thepharmaceutical speech repository 106 (e.g., via speech recognition).According to an example embodiment, the information stored in the speechaccent repository 110 may also be used to determine an identification ofa user (e.g., via voice recognition). According to an exampleembodiment, the information stored in the speech accent repository 110may include speech accent information that is not personalized toparticular users.

A medical history interface engine 112 may be configured to access amedical history repository 114 that includes medical history information116 associated with a plurality of patients. According to an exampleembodiment, the medical history information 116 associated with the atleast one of the patients may include one or more of a consumptionhistory associated with the at least one of the patients, an allergyhistory associated with the at least one of the patients, an allergyhistory associated with at least one family member biologically relatedto the at least one of the patients, a medical condition associated withthe at least one of the patients, or a medical condition associated withat least one family member biologically related to the at least one ofthe patients. For example, the consumption history may include a historyof consumption of various drugs, vitamins, foods, drinks, or supplementsby the patient.

For example, the medical history repository 114 may include namesassociated with medical diagnoses for each patient (e.g., myocardialinfarction, stress fracture), names of body parts (e.g., tibia,clavicle), names of patient complaints (e.g., fever, temperaturemeasurements, nausea, dizziness), names of observations (e.g.,contusion, confusion, obese, alert), names of inoculations or shots(e.g., tetanus, smallpox, flu), names of tests and results (e.g., bloodpressure, pulse, weight, temperature, cholesterol numbers, bloodsample), names of diseases (e.g., chicken pox, measles), namesassociated with patient histories (e.g., family history of cancer,non-smoker, social drinker, three pregnancies, family history of deathsassociated with blood thinners), and allergy information (e.g., allergyto penicillin).

According to an example embodiment, the medical history repository 114may include a plurality of electronic medical records associated withthe plurality of patients.

An audio data receiving engine 118 may be configured to receive eventaudio data 120 that is based on verbal utterances associated with apharmaceutical event associated with at least one of the patients.According to an example embodiment, a memory 122 may be configured tostore the event audio data 120. In this context, a “memory” may includea single memory device or multiple memory devices configured to storedata and/or instructions. Further, the memory 122 may span multipledistributed storage devices.

For example, a pharmacist or other pharmaceutical or medical personnelmay speak in range of an input device 124 that may include an audioinput device, regarding the pharmaceutical event.

According to an example embodiment, the pharmaceutical event may includeone or more of a medical prescription receiving event associated withthe at least one patient, or a medical prescription review eventassociated with the at least one of the patients.

Thus, for example, a physician may be examining an in-patient in ahospital room, and may be speaking pharmaceutical information whilehe/she is with the patient. Thus, it may be possible to provide a verbalinput to the input device 124 at the same time as providing verbalinformation to the patient or to caregivers of the patient. For example,a pharmacist may speak the drug information into the input device 124while speaking with the patient or caregiver at a pharmacy counter.

For example, the input device 124 may include a mobile audio inputdevice that may be carried with the physician/pharmacist as he/shenavigates from one patient or medical/pharmaceutical event to the next.For example, the event audio data 120 may be transmitted via a wired orwireless connection to the pharmaceutical alert speech engine 102. Theinput device 124 may also include one or more audio input devices (e.g.,microphones) that may be located in pharmacies, the operating rooms,emergency rooms, patient rooms, or in the hallways outside the patientrooms, or in offices provided for medical personnel and/orpharmaceutical personnel.

A recognition engine 126 may be configured to obtain at least one textstring that matches at least one interpretation of the received eventaudio data 120, based on information received from the pharmaceuticalspeech corpus interface engine 104, information received from the speechaccent interface engine 108, and a drug matching function 128, the atleast one text string associated with a pharmaceutical drug.

According to an example embodiment, the drug matching function 128 mayinclude one or more of a phoneme matching function configured todetermine the at least one text string based on at least one phoneme, auser history matching function configured to determine the at least onetext string based on a history of selected text strings associated witha user, or a patient history matching function configured to determinethe at least one text string based on a history of selected text stringsassociated with the patient.

According to an example embodiment, the drug matching function 128 mayinclude one or more of a name matching function configured to determinethe at least one text string based on a name associated with thepharmaceutical drug, or an alternative drug matching function configuredto determine the at least one text string based on a name associatedwith an alternative drug associated with the pharmaceutical drug. Forexample, the alternative drug may include a generic or name brandequivalent of a drug.

According to an example embodiment, the at least one text string mayinclude one or more of a name attribute associated with thepharmaceutical drug, a strength attribute associated with thepharmaceutical drug, or a dosage attribute associated with thepharmaceutical drug.

According to an example embodiment, the recognition engine 126 mayobtain a list of a plurality of candidate text strings 130 that matchinterpretations of the received event audio data 120, based oninformation received from the pharmaceutical speech corpus interfaceengine 104, information received from the speech accent interface engine108, and the drug matching function 128. For example, the drug matchingfunction 128 may include a fuzzy matching technique which may providesuggestions of text strings that approximately match portions of theevent audio data 120, based on information included in thepharmaceutical speech repository 106 and the speech accent repository110. According to an example embodiment, the suggestions may bepresented to the user for obtaining a selection of a most relevant textstring. According to an example embodiment, the user may providerevisions to a suggested text string.

According to an example embodiment, the suggestions may be provided tothe user via an audio output device. According to an example embodiment,the suggestions may be provided to the user via a graphical display orprint version. For example, the graphical display may be transmitted toa display device 131.

According to an example embodiment, a user selection or revision may bereceived via audio input. According to an example embodiment, the userselection or revision may be received via the input device 124 (e.g., akeyboard, keypad, touchscreen device, video data receiving device, orother manual, sensing, or tactile input devices).

According to an example embodiment, a speech recognition technique mayinclude extracting phonemes from the event audio data 120. For example,phonemes may be formally described as linguistic units, or as soundsthat may be aggregated by humans in forming spoken words. For example, ahuman conversion of a phoneme into sound in speech may be based onfactors such as surrounding phonemes, an accent of the speaker, and anage of the speaker. For example, a phoneme of “uh” may be associatedwith the “oo” pronunciation for the word “book” while a phoneme of “uw”may be associated with the “oo” pronunciation for the word “too.”

For example, the phonemes may be extracted from the event audio data 120via an example extraction technique based on at least one Fouriertransform (e.g., if the event audio data 120 is stored in the memory 122based on at least one representation of waveform data). For example, aFourier transform may include an example mathematical operation that maybe used to decompose a signal (e.g., an audio signal generated via anaudio input device) into its constituent frequencies.

For example, the extracted phonemes may be arranged in sequence (e.g.,the sequence as spoken by the speaker of the event audio data 120), anda statistical analysis may be performed based on at least one Markovmodel, which may include at least one sequential path of phonemesassociated with spoken words, phrases, or sentences associated with aparticular natural language.

One skilled in the art of data processing may appreciate that there aremany techniques available for translating voice to text and for speechrecognition, and that variations of these techniques may also be used,without departing from the spirit of the discussion herein.

A record retrieval engine 132 may be configured to obtain medicalhistory information 116 associated with the at least one of the patientsvia the medical history interface engine 112.

According to an example embodiment, an adverse drug event (ADE)interface engine 134 may be configured to access an ADE repository 136that includes attributes associated with adverse drug events. Forexample, the ADE repository 136 may include a local database, or it mayinclude a worldwide or national database that accepts ADE informationfrom subscriber medical/pharmaceutical personnel. For example, theUnited States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may host a database ofFDA approved drugs that includes attributes associated with drugs suchas drug names, equivalent drugs, dosages and strengths, manufacturernames, and ADE information associated with the drugs. For example, theADE repository 136 may be accessible to the pharmaceutical alert speechengine 102 via a network such as the Internet.

An adverse drug event (ADE) scanning engine 138 may be configured todetermine, via an alert device processor 140, one or more adverse drugevent alerts 142 based on matching the at least one text string andmedical history attributes associated with the at least one of thepatients with ADE attributes obtained from the ADE interface engine 134.

In this context, a “processor” may include a single processor ormultiple processors configured to process instructions associated with aprocessing system. A processor may thus include multiple processorsprocessing instructions in parallel and/or in a distributed manner.

An audio data output interface engine 144 may be configured to initiatea transmission of an audio alert 146 associated with the one or more ADEalerts 142 to an audio output device 148.

According to an example embodiment, an ADE alert interface engine 150may be configured to access an ADE alert repository 152 configured tostore information associated with a plurality of ADE alerts 142, the ADEalerts 142 including one or more of a plurality of recorded audio alertseach associated with a predetermined ADE alert, a plurality of textualalerts, each textual alert associated with a predetermined ADE alert, ora plurality of alert text strings, each alert text string associatedwith a predetermined attribute associated with a predetermined adversecondition. For example, a textual alert “possible allergy to penicillin”may be stored in the ADE alert repository 152.

According to an example embodiment, the recognition engine 126 may beconfigured to obtain the at least one text string that matches the atleast one interpretation of the received event audio data 120, based oninformation obtained from the pharmaceutical speech corpus interfaceengine 104, information received from the speech accent interface engine108, and the drug matching function 128.

According to an example embodiment, the record retrieval engine 126 maybe configured to obtain the medical history information 116 associatedwith the at least one of the patients via the medical history interfaceengine 112.

According to an example embodiment, the adverse drug event (ADE)scanning engine 138 may be configured to determine the one or moreadverse drug event alerts 142 based on matching the at least one textstring and the medical history attributes associated with the at leastone of the patients with ADE attributes obtained via the ADE interfaceengine 134.

According to an example embodiment, an ADE alert report engine 154 maybe configured to generate an ADE alert report 156 based on obtaining oneor more strings of text alert information via the ADE alert interfaceengine 150 and populating one or more fields associated with an ADEalert report form 158.

According to an example embodiment, the audio data output interfaceengine 144 may be configured to initiate the transmission of the audioalert 146 based on obtaining one or more strings of text alertinformation via the ADE alert interface engine 150 and initiating atext-to-speech transmission of the text alert information via the audioalert 146 to the audio output device 148.

According to an example embodiment, the drug matching function 128 mayinclude a matching function configured to determine a first candidatetext string and at least one fuzzy derivative candidate text string, amatching function configured to determine the plurality of candidatetext strings based on at least one phoneme, a matching functionconfigured to determine the plurality of candidate text strings based ona history of selected text strings associated with a user 160, or amatching function configured to determine the plurality of candidatetext strings based on a history of selected text strings associated withthe patient.

For example, the drug matching function 128 may include a fuzzy matchingalgorithm configured to determine a plurality of candidate text strings130 that are approximate textual matches as transcriptions of portionsof the event audio data 120. For example, the fuzzy matching algorithmmay determine that a group of text strings are all within apredetermined threshold value of “closeness” to an exact match based oncomparisons against the information in the pharmaceutical speechrepository 106 and the speech accent repository 110. The candidate textstrings 130 may then be “proposed” to the user 160, who may then accepta proposal or edit a proposal to more fully equate with the intent ofthe user 160 in his/her speech input. In this way, fuzzy matching mayexpedite the transcription process and provide increased productivityfor the user 160.

According to an example embodiment, a user interface engine 162 may beconfigured to manage communications between the user 160 and thepharmaceutical alert speech engine 102. A network communication engine164 may be configured to manage network communication between thepharmaceutical alert speech engine 102 and other entities that maycommunicate with the pharmaceutical alert speech engine 102 via one ormore networks.

For example, the ADE alert report form 158 may include fields for a nameof the patient, a name of an attending physician, a date of the patientevent, a patient identifier, a summary of patient complaints andobservable medical attributes, a patient history, a diagnosis summary,and an indication of a prescribed drug or an indication of an ADE alert142. For example, form template information may be provided in astructured format such as HyperText Markup Language (HTML) or ExtensibleMarkup Language (XML) format, and may provide labels for each field fordisplay to the user. For example, the template information may be storedin a local machine or a server such as a Structured Query Language (SQL)server.

According to an example embodiment, a pharmaceutical contextdetermination engine 166 may be configured to determine a pharmaceuticalcontext based on the received event audio data 120. For example, theuser 160 may speak words that are frequently used in a context ofprescribing a prescription medication (e.g., a name and dosage of aprescription medication), and the pharmaceutical context determinationengine 166 may determine that the context is a prescription context.

According to an example embodiment, the user interface engine 162 may beconfigured to obtain an identification of the user 160. For example, theuser 160 may speak identifying information such as his/her name,employee identification number, or other identifying information. Forexample, the user 160 may swipe or scan an identification card via aswiping or scanning input device included in the input device 124. Forexample, the user 160 may provide a fingerprint for identification via afingerprint input device included in the input device 124.

According to an example embodiment, a personnel data interface engine168 may be configured to access a personnel data repository 170 that maybe configured to store information associated with personnel associatedwith the medical/pharmaceutical facility associated with the system 100.For example, the personnel data repository 170 may store identifyinginformation associated with physicians, nurses, administrativepersonnel, and pharmaceutical technicians. For example, the identifyinginformation may include a name, an employee number or identifier, voicerecognition information, fingerprint recognition information, andauthorization levels. For example, a physician/pharmacist may beauthorized to provide and update patient prescription informationassociated with narcotic drugs, while administrative personnel may beblocked from entry of prescription information. Thus, for example,non-physician/non-pharmaceutical administrative personnel may not beallowed to access patient history information from the medical historyrepository 114.

According to an example embodiment, medical personnel or a patient maybe identified based on input information and information obtained fromthe personnel data repository 170 or the medical history repository 114,and corresponding fields of the ADE alert report form 158 may bepopulated based on the identifying information. For example, if the user160 is identified by voice recognition, then the name of the user 160may be filled in for a physician/pharmacist name in the ADE alert reportform 158.

According to an example embodiment, the recognition engine 126 may beconfigured to obtain the list 130 based on information included in thepharmaceutical speech repository 106, information that is associatedwith the user 160 and is included in the speech accent repository 110,and the drug matching function 128. For example, the user 160 maydevelop a history of selecting particular text strings based onparticular speech input, and the speech accent repository 110 may beupdated to reflect the particular user's historical selections. Thus,the speech accent repository 110 may be trained over time to providebetter matches for future requests from individual users 160.

According to an example embodiment, the user interface engine 162 may beconfigured to obtain an identification of the user 160, based onreceiving an indication of the identification from the user 160 orobtaining the identification based on matching a portion of the eventaudio data 120 with a portion of the information included in the speechaccent repository 110, based on voice recognition.

According to an example embodiment, the verbal utterances may beassociated with a physician or pharmacist designated as a physician orpharmacist responsible for treatment of the patient.

According to an example embodiment, the recognition engine 126 may beconfigured to obtain the list 130 based on obtaining the list of theplurality of candidate text strings that match interpretations of theevent audio data 120, based on information included in thepharmaceutical speech repository 106 that includes informationassociated with a vocabulary that is associated with pharmaceuticalprofessional terminology and a vocabulary that is associated with apredetermined pharmaceutical environment. For example, thepharmaceutical speech repository 106 may include information associatedwith pharmaceutical professionals worldwide, as well as localizedinformation associated with pharmaceutical personnel locally (e.g.,within the environment of the medical/pharmaceutical facility). Forexample, personnel local to a particular medical/pharmaceutical facilitymay use names and descriptions that develop over time in a localcommunity, and that may not be globally recognized.

According to an example embodiment, the user interface engine 162 may beconfigured to receive at least one revision to a selected text string,based on input from the user 160. For example, the user 160 may beprovided the list 130, and may decide to revise at least one of thecandidate text strings for better clarity.

According to an example embodiment, an update engine 172 may beconfigured to receive training audio data 174 that is based on verbaltraining utterances associated with the user 160, and initiate an updateevent associated with the speech accent repository 110 based on thereceived training audio data 174. For example, the user 160 may providetraining audio input that may include audio data of the user 160 readingprescription data, for training the speech accent repository 110 tobetter match event audio data 120 obtained from the user 160 withinformation included in the pharmaceutical speech repository 106.

According to an example embodiment, the update engine 172 may beconfigured to initiate an update event associated with the speech accentrepository 110 based on an obtained selection. For example, the speechaccent repository 110 may receive training information associated withthe user 160 over time, based on a history of text string selectionsthat are based on the received event audio data 120.

According to an example embodiment, a text-to-speech interface engine176 may be configured to access a text-to-speech engine 178 that may beconfigured to obtain audio output data based on text string input data.According to an example embodiment, the text-to-speech engine 178 may beconfigured to obtain audio output data based on text string input datacombined with audio data. For example, the text-to-speech engine 178 mayobtain audio output data based on the ADE alert report 156. For example,the text-to-speech engine 178 may obtain audio output data based on thetext strings associated with ADE alerts and one or more audio alerts146.

For example, the text-to-speech engine 178 may convert raw text thatincludes symbols such as numbers and abbreviations into an equivalent ofnon-abbreviated words (e.g., text normalization, pre-processing,tokenization). Phonetic transcriptions may then be associated with eachword, and the text may be divided and marked into prosodic units (e.g.,phrases, clauses, and sentences). For example, phonetic transcriptionsmay be assigned to words (e.g., via text-to-phoneme orgrapheme-to-phoneme conversion). For example, phonetic transcriptionsand prosody information may provide a symbolic linguistic representationthat may be provided to a synthesizer, which may then convert thesymbolic linguistic representation into sound.

One skilled in the art of data processing may appreciate that there aremany techniques available for converting text to speech, and thatvariations of these techniques may also be used, without departing fromthe spirit of the discussion herein.

According to an example embodiment, the audio output data may betransmitted to the audio output device 148 associated with the user 160.

FIGS. 2A-2B are a flowchart 200 illustrating example operations of thesystem of FIG. 1, according to example embodiments. In the example ofFIG. 2A, event audio data that is based on verbal utterances associatedwith a pharmaceutical event associated with at least one of the patientsmay be received (202). For example, the audio data receiving engine 118may receive event audio data 120 that is based on verbal utterancesassociated with a pharmaceutical event associated with the patient, asdiscussed above.

At least one text string that matches at least one interpretation of thereceived event audio data may be obtained, based on information obtainedfrom a pharmaceutical speech repository, information obtained from aspeech accent repository, and a drug matching function, the at least onetext string associated with a pharmaceutical drug (204). For example,the recognition engine 126 as discussed above may obtain at least onetext string that matches at least one interpretation of the receivedevent audio data 120, based on information received from thepharmaceutical speech corpus interface engine 104, information receivedfrom the speech accent interface engine 108, and a drug matchingfunction 128, the at least one text string associated with apharmaceutical drug.

Medical history information associated with the at least one of thepatients may be obtained (206). For example, the record retrieval engine132 may obtain medical history information 116 associated with the atleast one of the patients via the medical history interface engine 112,as discussed above.

One or more adverse drug event alerts may be determined, via an alertdevice processor, based on matching the at least one text string andmedical history attributes associated with the at least one of thepatients with ADE attributes obtained from an ADE repository (208). Forexample, the adverse drug event (ADE) scanning engine 138 may determine,via the alert device processor 140, one or more adverse drug eventalerts 142 based on matching the at least one text string and medicalhistory attributes associated with the at least one of the patients withADE attributes obtained from the ADE interface engine 134, as discussedabove.

A transmission of an audio alert associated with the one or more ADEalerts to an audio output device may be initiated (210). For example,the audio data output interface engine 144 may initiate the transmissionof the audio alert 146 associated with the one or more ADE alerts 142 tothe audio output device 148, as discussed above.

According to an example embodiment, the pharmaceutical event may includeone or more of a medical prescription receiving event associated withthe patient, or a medical prescription review event associated with thepatient. According to an example embodiment, the verbal utterances maybe associated with pharmaceutical personnel designated as pharmaceuticalpersonnel responsible for pharmaceutical requests associated with thepatient. For example, the pharmaceutical event may include apharmacist/patient conference at a pharmacy counter as the patientsubmits a prescription form for requesting prescribed drugs from thepharmacy.

According to an example embodiment, an ADE alert repository may beaccessed, the ADE alert repository configured to store informationassociated with a plurality of ADE alerts, the ADE alerts including oneor more of a plurality of recorded audio alerts each associated with apredetermined ADE alert, a plurality of textual alerts, each textualalert associated with a predetermined ADE alert, or a plurality of alerttext strings, each alert text string associated with a predeterminedattribute associated with a predetermined adverse condition (212). Forexample, the ADE alert interface engine 150 may access the ADE alertrepository 152 configured to store information associated with theplurality of ADE alerts 142, the ADE alerts 142 including one or more ofa plurality of recorded audio alerts each associated with apredetermined ADE alert, a plurality of textual alerts, each textualalert associated with a predetermined ADE alert, or a plurality of alerttext strings, each alert text string associated with a predeterminedattribute associated with a predetermined adverse condition, asdiscussed above.

According to an example embodiment, an ADE alert report may be generatedbased on obtaining one or more strings of text alert information via theADE alert interface engine and populating one or more fields associatedwith an ADE alert report form (214). For example, the ADE alert reportengine 154 may generate an ADE alert report 156 based on obtaining oneor more strings of text alert information via the ADE alert interfaceengine 150 and populating one or more fields associated with an ADEalert report form 158, as discussed above.

According to an example embodiment, transmission of the audio alert maybe initiated based on obtaining one or more strings of text alertinformation via the ADE alert interface engine and initiating atext-to-speech transmission of the text alert information via the audioalert to the audio output device (216). For example, the audio dataoutput interface engine 144 may initiate the transmission of the audioalert 146 based on obtaining one or more strings of text alertinformation via the ADE alert interface engine 150 and initiating atext-to-speech transmission of the text alert information via the audioalert 146 to the audio output device 148, as discussed above.

FIGS. 3A-3B are a flowchart illustrating example operations of thesystem of FIG. 1, according to example embodiments. In the example ofFIG. 3A, event audio data that is based on verbal utterances associatedwith a pharmaceutical event associated with a patient may be received(302). For example, the audio data receiving engine 118 may receiveevent audio data 120 that is based on verbal utterances associated witha pharmaceutical event associated with the patient, as discussed above.

Medical history information associated with the patient may be obtained,based on information included in a medical history repository (304). Forexample, the record retrieval engine 132 may obtain medical historyinformation 116 associated with the at least one of the patients via themedical history interface engine 112, as discussed above.

At least one text string that matches at least one interpretation of theevent audio data may be obtained, based on information included in apharmaceutical speech repository, information included in a speechaccent repository, and a drug matching function, the at least one textstring associated with a pharmaceutical drug (306). For example, therecognition engine 126 as discussed above may obtain at least one textstring that matches at least one interpretation of the received eventaudio data 120, based on information received from the pharmaceuticalspeech corpus interface engine 104, information received from the speechaccent interface engine 108, and a drug matching function 128, the atleast one text string associated with a pharmaceutical drug, asdiscussed above.

One or more adverse drug event (ADE) alerts may be determined, via analert device processor, based on matching the at least one text stringand medical history attributes associated with the at least one patientwith ADE attributes obtained from an ADE repository (308). For example,the adverse drug event (ADE) scanning engine 138 may determine, via thealert device processor 140, one or more adverse drug event alerts 142based on matching the at least one text string and medical historyattributes associated with the at least one of the patients with ADEattributes obtained from the ADE interface engine 134, as discussedabove.

An ADE alert report may be generated, based on the determined one ormore ADE alerts (310). For example, the ADE alert report engine 154 maygenerate the ADE alert report 156, as discussed above.

According to an example embodiment, a transmission of an audio alertassociated with the one or more ADE alerts to an audio output device maybe initiated (312). For example, the audio data output interface engine144 may initiate the transmission of the audio alert 146 associated withthe one or more ADE alerts 142 to the audio output device 148, asdiscussed above.

According to an example embodiment, an identification of a userassociated with the verbal utterances associated with the pharmaceuticalevent may be obtained (314). According to an example embodiment, theidentification of the user associated with the verbal utterancesassociated with the pharmaceutical event may be obtained based on one ormore of receiving an indication of the identification from the user, orobtaining the identification based on matching a portion of the eventaudio data with a portion of the information included in the speechaccent repository, based on voice recognition (316).

According to an example embodiment, training audio data that is based onverbal training utterances associated with a user of the ADE alertreport may be received (318). According to an example embodiment, anupdate event associated with the speech accent repository may beinitiated based on the received training audio data (320). For example,the update engine 172 may receive training audio data 174 that is basedon verbal training utterances associated with the user 160, and initiatean update event associated with the speech accent repository 110 basedon the received training audio data 174, as discussed above.

FIGS. 4A-4B are a flowchart illustrating example operations of thesystem of FIG. 1. In the example of FIG. 4A, an indication of a receiptof event audio data from a user that is based on verbal utterancesassociated with a pharmaceutical event associated with a patient may bereceived (402). For example, the user interface engine 162 may receivethe indication of the receipt of the event audio data 114 from the user160. According to an example embodiment, a user interface engine mayalso be located on a user device that may be located external to thepharmaceutical alert speech engine 102, and that may include at least aportion of the input device 124 and/or the display 131. For example, theuser 160 may use a computing device such as a portable communicationdevice or a desktop device that may include at least a portion of theinput device 124 and/or the display 131, and that may be in wireless orwired communication with the pharmaceutical alert speech engine 102, andthat may include the user interface engine for the user device.

An indication of an ADE alert report based on a first plurality ofstrings of text alert information from an ADE alert repository and anADE alert report form may be received, via an alert device processor(404). For example, the user interface engine discussed above withregard to the user 160 computing device may receive an indication of theADE alert report 156.

An indication of an audio alert based on a second plurality of stringsof text alert information from the ADE alert repository may be received(406). For example, the user interface engine discussed above withregard to the user 160 computing device may receive an indication of theaudio alert 146.

Communication of the audio alert to an audio output device associatedwith the user may be initiated (408). For example, the communication maybe initiated as an audio communication of the audio alert 146 to theuser 160 via the audio output device 148.

Template information associated with an electronic pharmaceutical formmay be received (410). A graphical output depicting a population of atleast one field of the electronic pharmaceutical form may be initiated,based on the first plurality of strings of text alert information fromthe ADE alert repository, the ADE alert report form, and the receivedtemplate information (412). For example, the user interface enginediscussed above with regard to the user 160 computing device may receivetemplate information such as the template information associated withthe ADE alert report form 158, and may initiate the graphical output forthe user 160 via the display device 131.

According to an example embodiment, the graphical output depicting apopulation of at least one field of the electronic pharmaceutical formmay be initiated based on one or more of initiating a graphical displayof the populated electronic pharmaceutical form on a display device,based on the first plurality of strings of text alert information fromthe ADE alert repository, the ADE alert report form, and the receivedtemplate information, initiating a graphical output to a printer, basedon the first plurality of strings of text alert information from the ADEalert repository, the ADE alert report form, and the received templateinformation, or initiating a graphical output to an electronic file,based on the first plurality of strings of text alert information fromthe ADE alert repository, the ADE alert report form, and the receivedtemplate information (414).

According to an example embodiment, the communication of the audio alertto the audio output device associated with the user may be initiatedbased on one or more of initiating a text-to-speech conversion of thetext alert information based on the audio alert to the audio outputdevice associated with the user, or initiating an audio output of atleast one recorded audio alert obtained from an ADE alert repository(416). For example, the user interface engine discussed above withregard to the user 160 computing device may receive the audio alert 146as a recorded audio alert obtained from the ADE alert repository 152 andinitiate communication of the recorded audio alert 146 to the audiooutput device 148. For example, the user interface engine discussedabove with regard to the user 160 computing device may receive the textalert information and initiate a text-to-speech conversion of the textalert information to the audio output device 148 via the text-to-speechengine 178.

According to an example embodiment, an identification of a userassociated with the verbal utterances associated with the pharmaceuticalevent may be initiated, based on one or more of a fingerprintidentification of the user associated with the verbal utterancesassociated with the pharmaceutical event, a text entry identification ofthe user associated with the verbal utterances associated with thepharmaceutical event, a voice recognition identification of the userassociated with the verbal utterances associated with the pharmaceuticalevent, or a scanned item identification of the user associated with theverbal utterances associated with the pharmaceutical event, based on ascanning of an identification item.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an example system for automated adversedrug event alerts. As shown in FIG. 5, a user may speak drug information(502). For example, the user 160 may include a pharmacist or physicianspeaking information associated with the pharmaceutical drugs or otheritems into the input device 124, as discussed above. Voice/speechrecognition may be performed on the spoken drug information (504). Forexample, the recognition engine 126 may perform the voice/speechrecognition based at least on information included in the pharmaceuticalspeech repository 106 and the speech accent repository 110, as discussedabove. For example, the recognition engine 126 may be configured toobtain the list of candidate strings 130, as discussed above.

Scanning may be performed (506). For example, the adverse drug event(ADE) scanning engine 138 may determine, via the alert device processor140, one or more adverse drug event alerts 142 based on matching the atleast one text string and medical history attributes associated with theat least one of the patients with ADE attributes obtained from the ADEinterface engine 134, as discussed above.

An ADE alert report may be generated (508). For example, the ADE alertreport engine 154 may generate the ADE alert report 156 based onobtaining one or more strings of text alert information via the ADEalert interface engine 150 and populating one or more fields associatedwith the ADE alert report form 158, as discussed above.

A text-to-speech alert may be obtained (510) and transmitted to an audiooutput device. For example, the audio data output interface engine 144may initiate the transmission of the audio alert 146 based on obtainingone or more strings of text alert information via the ADE alertinterface engine 150 and initiating a text-to-speech transmission of thetext alert information via the audio alert 146 to the audio outputdevice 148, as discussed above.

FIG. 6 depicts an example graphical view of a populated adverse drugevent alert report. As shown in FIG. 6, a patient adverse drug eventalert report 600 may be obtained as discussed above. As shown in FIG. 6,a patient name field 602 may be populated with a name of a patient. Adate field 604 may be populated with a date of the report. For example,the date may be obtained from a computing system date function. Aphysician name field 608 may be populated with the name of an attendingphysician, for example, the name of a physician providing aprescription.

A patient history field 610 may be populated with medical historyinformation 116 associated with the patient that may be obtained fromthe medical history repository 114. A prescription field 606 may bepopulated with a text indication of drug information that may have beenuttered as event audio data 120 to the input device 124, as discussedabove.

An alert field 612 may be populated with a text version of the ADE alert146 that may be determined by the ADE scanning engine 138, as discussedabove. A report name field 614 may indicate that the report includes apatient adverse drug event alert report 156.

According to an example embodiment, the report 600 may be displayed orprinted in clear text format for later review by the patient or acaretaker of the patient, as well as for review and signature by theuser 160 (e.g., before the form 600 is provided to the patient).

Patient privacy and patient confidentiality have been ongoingconsiderations in medical environments for many years. Thus, medicalfacility and pharmaceutical personnel may provide permission forms forpatient review and signature before the patient's information is enteredinto an electronic information system, to ensure that a patient isinformed of potential risks of electronically stored personal/privateinformation such as a medical history or other personal identifyinginformation. Further, authentication techniques may be included in orderfor medical facility and/or pharmaceutical facility personnel to enteror otherwise access patient information in the system 100. For example,a user identifier and password may be requested for any type of accessto patient information. As another example, an authorized fingerprint oraudio identification (e.g., via voice recognition) may be requested forthe access. Additionally, access to networked elements of the system maybe provided via secured connections (or hardwired connections), andfirewalls may be provided to minimize risk of potential hacking into thesystem.

Further, medical and/or pharmaceutical facility personnel may providepermission forms for facility employees for review and signature beforethe employees' information is entered into an electronic medicalinformation system, to ensure that employees are informed of potentialrisks of electronically stored personal/private information such as amedical history or other personal identifying information.

Implementations of the various techniques described herein may beimplemented in digital electronic circuitry, or in computer hardware,firmware, software, or in combinations of them. Implementations mayimplemented as a computer program product, i.e., a computer programtangibly embodied in an information carrier, e.g., in a machine usableor machine readable storage device (e.g., a magnetic or digital mediumsuch as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) storage device, a tape, hard diskdrive, compact disk, digital video disk (DVD), etc.) or in a propagatedsignal, for execution by, or to control the operation of, dataprocessing apparatus, e.g., a programmable processor, a computer, ormultiple computers. A computer program, such as the computer program(s)described above, can be written in any form of programming language,including compiled or interpreted languages, and can be deployed in anyform, including as a stand alone program or as a module, component,subroutine, or other unit suitable for use in a computing environment. Acomputer program that might implement the techniques discussed above maybe deployed to be executed on one computer or on multiple computers atone site or distributed across multiple sites and interconnected by acommunication network.

Method steps may be performed by one or more programmable processorsexecuting a computer program to perform functions by operating on inputdata and generating output. The one or more programmable processors mayexecute instructions in parallel, and/or may be arranged in adistributed configuration for distributed processing. Method steps alsomay be performed by, and an apparatus may be implemented as, specialpurpose logic circuitry, e.g., an FPGA (field programmable gate array)or an ASIC (application specific integrated circuit).

Processors suitable for the execution of a computer program include, byway of example, both general and special purpose microprocessors, andany one or more processors of any kind of digital computer. Generally, aprocessor will receive instructions and data from a read only memory ora random access memory or both. Elements of a computer may include atleast one processor for executing instructions and one or more memorydevices for storing instructions and data. Generally, a computer alsomay include, or be operatively coupled to receive data from or transferdata to, or both, one or more mass storage devices for storing data,e.g., magnetic, magneto optical disks, or optical disks. Informationcarriers suitable for embodying computer program instructions and datainclude all forms of non volatile memory, including by way of examplesemiconductor memory devices, e.g., EPROM, EEPROM, and flash memorydevices; magnetic disks, e.g., internal hard disks or removable disks;magneto optical disks; and CD ROM and DVD-ROM disks. The processor andthe memory may be supplemented by, or incorporated in special purposelogic circuitry.

To provide for interaction with a user, implementations may beimplemented on a computer having a display device, e.g., a cathode raytube (CRT) or liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor, for displayinginformation to the user and a keyboard and a pointing device, e.g., amouse or a trackball, by which the user can provide input to thecomputer. Other kinds of devices can be used to provide for interactionwith a user as well; for example, feedback provided to the user can beany form of sensory feedback, e.g., visual feedback, auditory feedback,or tactile feedback; and input from the user can be received in anyform, including acoustic, speech, or tactile input.

Implementations may be implemented in a computing system that includes aback end component, e.g., as a data server, or that includes amiddleware component, e.g., an application server, or that includes afront end component, e.g., a client computer having a graphical userinterface or a Web browser through which a user can interact with animplementation, or any combination of such back end, middleware, orfront end components. Components may be interconnected by any form ormedium of digital data communication, e.g., a communication network.Examples of communication networks include a local area network (LAN)and a wide area network (WAN), e.g., the Internet.

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the subject matter defined in the appended claims is notnecessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above.Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed asexample forms of implementing the claims. While certain features of thedescribed implementations have been illustrated as described herein,many modifications, substitutions, changes and equivalents will nowoccur to those skilled in the art. It is, therefore, to be understoodthat the appended claims are intended to cover all such modificationsand changes as fall within the scope of the embodiments.

What is claimed is:
 1. A medical alert system comprising: at least onedevice processor; and a machine readable storage device storingexecutable instructions that, when executed, cause one or more of the atleast one device processor to: receive an indication of a receipt ofevent audio data from a user that is based on verbal utterances that areassociated with a pharmaceutical event, the pharmaceutical event beingassociated with a patient; receive an indication of an adverse drugevent (ADE) alert report that is based on a first plurality of stringsof text alert information from an ADE alert repository and an ADE alertreport form; receive an indication of an audio alert that is based on asecond plurality of strings of text alert information from the ADE alertrepository; initiate communication of the audio alert to an audio outputdevice that is associated with the user; receive template informationthat is associated with an electronic pharmaceutical form; and initiatea graphical output depicting a population of at least one field of theelectronic pharmaceutical form, based on the first plurality of stringsof text alert information from the ADE alert repository, the ADE alertreport form, and the received template information.
 2. The medical alertsystem of claim 1, wherein the executable code, when executed, isconfigured to cause the one or more of the at least one device processorto: initiate the graphical output depicting a population of at least onefield of the electronic pharmaceutical form, by initiating a graphicaldisplay of the populated electronic pharmaceutical form on a displaydevice, based on the first plurality of strings of text alertinformation from the ADE alert repository, the ADE alert report form,and the received template information.
 3. The medical alert system ofclaim 1, wherein the executable code, when executed, is configured tocause the one or more of the at least one device processor to: initiatethe graphical output depicting a population of at least one field of theelectronic pharmaceutical form, by: initiating a graphical output to aprinter, based on the first plurality of strings of text alertinformation from the ADE alert repository, the ADE alert report form,and the received template information.
 4. The medical alert system ofclaim 1, wherein the executable code, when executed, is configured tocause the one or more of the at least one device processor to: initiatethe graphical output depicting a population of at least one field of theelectronic pharmaceutical form, by: initiating a graphical output to anelectronic file, based on the first plurality of strings of text alertinformation from the ADE alert repository, the ADE alert report form,and the received template information.
 5. The medical alert system ofclaim 1, wherein the executable code, when executed, is configured tocause the one or more of the at least one device processor to: initiatethe communication of the audio alert to the audio output deviceassociated with the user, by: initiating a text-to-speech conversion ofthe text alert information based on the audio alert to the audio outputdevice associated with the user.
 6. The medical alert system of claim 1,wherein the executable code, when executed, is configured to cause theone or more of the at least one device processor to: initiate thecommunication of the audio alert to the audio output device associatedwith the user, by: initiating an audio output of at least one recordedaudio alert obtained from the ADE alert repository.
 7. The medical alertsystem of claim 1, wherein the ADE alert repository includes attributeswhich are associated with adverse drug events.
 8. The medical alertsystem of claim 1, wherein the pharmaceutical event includes one or moreof: a medical prescription receiving event associated with the patient,or a medical prescription review event associated with the patient. 9.The medical alert system of claim 1, wherein the ADE alert repository isconfigured to store information which is associated with a plurality ofADE alerts, the ADE alerts including one or more of: a plurality ofrecorded audio alerts each associated with a predetermined ADE alert, aplurality of textual alerts, each textual alert associated with apredetermined ADE alert, or a plurality of alert text strings, eachalert text string associated with a predetermined attribute associatedwith a predetermined adverse condition.
 10. The medical alert system ofclaim 1, wherein the ADE alert repository is hosted on another systemthat is configured separately from a hosting system that hosts themedical alert system.
 11. A method comprising: receiving an indicationof a receipt of event audio data from a user that is based on verbalutterances that are associated with a pharmaceutical event, thepharmaceutical event being associated with a patient; receiving anindication of an adverse drug event (ADE) alert report that is based ona plurality of strings of text alert information from an ADE alertrepository and an ADE alert report form; receiving template informationthat is associated with an electronic pharmaceutical form; andinitiating a graphical output depicting a population of at least onefield of the electronic pharmaceutical form, based on the firstplurality of strings of text alert information from the ADE alertrepository, the ADE alert report form, and the received templateinformation.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein: initiating thegraphical output includes initiating a graphical display of thepopulated electronic pharmaceutical form on a display device, based onthe plurality of strings of text alert information from the ADE alertrepository, the ADE alert report form, and the received templateinformation.
 13. The method of claim 11, wherein: initiating thegraphical output includes initiating a graphical output to a printer,based on the plurality of strings of text alert information from the ADEalert repository, the ADE alert report form, and the received templateinformation.
 14. The method of claim 11, wherein: initiating thegraphical output includes initiating a graphical output to an electronicfile, based on the plurality of strings of text alert information fromthe ADE alert repository, the ADE alert report form, and the receivedtemplate information.
 15. The method of claim 11, wherein thepharmaceutical event includes one or more of: a medical prescriptionreceiving event associated with the patient, or a medical prescriptionreview event associated with the patient.
 16. The method of claim 11,wherein the ADE alert repository is configured to store informationwhich is associated with a plurality of ADE alerts, the ADE alertsincluding one or more of: a plurality of recorded audio alerts eachassociated with a predetermined ADE alert, a plurality of textualalerts, each textual alert associated with a predetermined ADE alert, ora plurality of alert text strings, each alert text string associatedwith a predetermined attribute associated with a predetermined adversecondition.
 17. A method comprising: receiving an indication of a receiptof event audio data from a user that is based on verbal utterances thatare associated with a pharmaceutical event, the pharmaceutical eventbeing associated with a patient; receiving an indication of an audioalert that is based on a plurality of strings of text alert informationfrom an adverse drug event (ADE) alert repository; and initiatingcommunication of the audio alert to an audio output device that isassociated with the user.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein:initiating the communication of the audio alert includes initiating anaudio output of at least one recorded audio alert obtained from the ADEalert repository.
 19. The method of claim 17, wherein: initiating thecommunication of the audio alert includes initiating a text-to-speechconversion of the text alert information based on the audio alert to theaudio output device associated with the user.
 20. The method of claim17, wherein the ADE alert repository is configured to store informationwhich is associated with a plurality of ADE alerts, the ADE alertsincluding one or more of: a plurality of recorded audio alerts eachassociated with a predetermined ADE alert, a plurality of textualalerts, each textual alert associated with a predetermined ADE alert, ora plurality of alert text strings, each alert text string associatedwith a predetermined attribute associated with a predetermined adversecondition.